1 00:00:00,848 --> 00:00:07,848 This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. 2 00:00:07,848 --> 00:00:18,849 The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine. 3 00:00:18,849 --> 00:00:28,849 It is believed that somewhere in the high mountains of Peru lies wealth beyond imagining. 4 00:00:29,849 --> 00:00:34,849 Gold, the lost treasure of a great empire. 5 00:00:34,849 --> 00:00:40,849 The empire was called Tauantinsia, kingdom of the Inca. 6 00:00:40,849 --> 00:00:46,850 White men called it something else. For them, it was El Dorado. 7 00:00:46,850 --> 00:00:55,850 They found that the fabled cities of gold were real, but if the mountains could speak, they would tell a sad story. 8 00:00:56,850 --> 00:01:01,850 A story of lust and greed and treachery. 9 00:01:01,850 --> 00:01:08,851 But men have not learned to read the wind or the cry of great birds that soar over lost kingdoms. 10 00:01:10,851 --> 00:01:14,851 The secret is safe for a while yet. 11 00:01:17,851 --> 00:01:22,851 The green world between the peaks has not given up the treasure of the Incos. 12 00:01:23,851 --> 00:01:31,851 Men still search, some out of love for the past, some out of love for gold. 13 00:01:33,851 --> 00:01:40,852 Now the in search of cameras come closer than men have been before to the heart of the mystery of the great Inca treasure. 14 00:01:41,852 --> 00:01:47,852 The Great Spine of the Andes Mountains acts as one of the most diverse environments in the world. 15 00:01:47,852 --> 00:01:53,852 It is a land of many wonders which has attracted the curious and the greedy for centuries. 16 00:01:57,852 --> 00:02:03,853 For some, there is wealth enough in the remnants of the ancient and the ancient. 17 00:02:03,853 --> 00:02:09,853 For some, there is wealth enough in the remnants of the western hemisphere's first great civilization. 18 00:02:09,853 --> 00:02:14,853 For others, pottery shards and broken masonry are not enough. 19 00:02:15,853 --> 00:02:19,853 They seek the precious yellow metal called gold. 20 00:02:21,853 --> 00:02:26,853 The mountains and jungles of Peru have provided an irresistible lure for centuries. 21 00:02:26,853 --> 00:02:32,854 There's the romance of faraway places and people with the most beautiful and beautiful scenery. 22 00:02:33,854 --> 00:02:41,854 With exotic customs, the feeling of being in a Shangri-La somehow cut off from the crush of too many people in too little time. 23 00:02:42,854 --> 00:02:47,854 There's another ingredient in this appealing mix, the promise of treasure beyond imagining. 24 00:02:47,854 --> 00:02:52,854 It's a promise that has touched off wars and launched brave men on great adventures. 25 00:02:55,855 --> 00:02:58,855 The great city of the Incas was Cusco. 26 00:02:58,855 --> 00:03:02,855 It lives on even though the empire it gave birth to is gone. 27 00:03:03,855 --> 00:03:07,855 The streets of Cusco are full of the modest sounds of commerce now. 28 00:03:07,855 --> 00:03:16,855 Once they echo to the marching feet of an imperial army, an army which enforced the will of God-kings on 12 million subjects. 29 00:03:18,855 --> 00:03:21,856 The people of Cusco have endured. 30 00:03:22,856 --> 00:03:31,856 They are descendants of a race which conceived, conquered, then lost to a handful of Spaniards, one of the world's most remarkable empires. 31 00:03:32,856 --> 00:03:36,856 Yet relatively little is known of the roots of this remarkable people. 32 00:03:40,856 --> 00:03:45,856 The ruined ink of fortress of Saxa-Woman is testimony to the Inca genius for building. 33 00:03:46,856 --> 00:03:51,857 Strong backs needed to haul great weight were conscripted from conquered peoples. 34 00:03:54,857 --> 00:03:58,857 The massive masonry was perfectly tooled, built to last forever. 35 00:04:02,857 --> 00:04:08,857 Thousands of artists labored directly for the state to embellish the palaces of priests and princes. 36 00:04:12,857 --> 00:04:18,858 The Inca excelled in engineering and advanced methods of irrigation and crop management. 37 00:04:19,858 --> 00:04:23,858 Even in death, the Inca were a proud and disciplined race. 38 00:04:26,858 --> 00:04:33,858 At the National Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology in Lima, Dr. Edward Verstelen and his colleagues inspect an ink and mummy. 39 00:04:37,858 --> 00:04:44,859 Much of what is known about Inca civilization is the fact that the Inca is a great source of inspiration. 40 00:04:45,859 --> 00:04:49,859 Much of what is known about Inca civilization comes from studying graves. 41 00:04:51,859 --> 00:04:56,859 The things a person considered important in death say much about how he lived his life. 42 00:05:14,860 --> 00:05:23,860 To touch things that were precious to someone of another time, another world, it is an irreverence born of a need to know. 43 00:05:26,860 --> 00:05:32,860 In the quest for knowledge, investigators must compete with those whose quest is for riches. 44 00:05:33,860 --> 00:05:37,861 There's a thriving black market in Inca gold and artifacts. 45 00:05:38,861 --> 00:05:42,861 This Inca might have lived in glorious times. 46 00:05:43,861 --> 00:05:46,861 He might have seen an empire created in less than 30 years. 47 00:05:47,861 --> 00:05:52,861 Or witnessed the arrival in 1527 of a Spaniard named Francisco Pizarro. 48 00:05:53,861 --> 00:05:58,861 That arrival was barely a hundred years from the Inca's explosion of conquest. 49 00:05:59,861 --> 00:06:03,862 But for the empire, that was all the time there was to be. 50 00:06:03,862 --> 00:06:18,862 In one of the most amazing events of history, the great and mighty of the Inca nation would vanish into the jungle, driven into oblivion by 180 men in rusting Spanish armor. 51 00:06:20,862 --> 00:06:27,862 Hiram Bingham was one of many who would devote part of his life to following the blurred trail left by the Inca. 52 00:06:28,863 --> 00:06:33,863 The young Yale archaeologist and explorer entered the Andes in 1910. 53 00:06:34,863 --> 00:06:40,863 He believed that the Inca must have built another great city once they abandoned Cusco to the Spanish. 54 00:06:41,863 --> 00:06:50,863 Bingham knew that Pizarro had held the Inca king Arujopa captive, and that an enormous ransom in gold was raised to meet Pizarro's demands. 55 00:06:51,863 --> 00:06:55,864 But Pizarro had the Inca king murdered before the gold was safely in his hands. 56 00:06:56,864 --> 00:07:02,864 Bingham might have reasoned that to find the lost city of the Incas was to find the gold that had eluded Pizarro. 57 00:07:04,864 --> 00:07:07,864 The explorer devoted more than a year to his quest. 58 00:07:12,864 --> 00:07:19,864 Then, one insufferably hot day in July 1911, Bingham thought he'd found the mythical city. 59 00:07:26,865 --> 00:07:30,865 As Bingham approached the ghost city that would be called Machu Picchu, 60 00:07:31,865 --> 00:07:38,865 he was convinced that his long search had paid off, that he had truly found the last capital of the Incas. 61 00:07:43,865 --> 00:07:46,865 He found temples, but no hoard of treasure. 62 00:07:46,865 --> 00:08:01,866 Bingham wrote that he had never seen such exquisite masonry. Temples open to the sky, undoubtedly constructed for sun worship. 63 00:08:05,866 --> 00:08:13,866 Bingham was sure he had discovered the retreat where the last Inca kings ruled in the sunset years of their empire. 64 00:08:17,867 --> 00:08:22,867 The road Bingham traveled to the discovery of Machu Picchu was a hard one. 65 00:08:23,867 --> 00:08:29,867 The world celebrated his prize, and the young explorer became one of the decades most appealing heroes. 66 00:08:30,867 --> 00:08:38,867 But Bingham was wrong. Machu Picchu was not the last capital of the Incas, the legendary Vilcabamba. 67 00:08:39,867 --> 00:08:45,868 Like so much about the Inca civilization and its celebrated riches, the truth remained just out of reach. 68 00:08:46,868 --> 00:08:53,868 What was needed was other men of courage and vision to pick up where Bingham left off with his remarkable discovery of Machu Picchu, 69 00:08:54,868 --> 00:08:57,868 to pursue his dream deeper into the Andean wilderness. 70 00:08:59,868 --> 00:09:06,868 At the San Marcos University in Lima, Peru are the offices of a world-renowned authority on Inca history. 71 00:09:06,868 --> 00:09:14,869 He is professor at Mundo Guian, and he has devoted his adult life to solving the riddles that perplexed earlier scholars like Bingham. 72 00:09:15,869 --> 00:09:26,869 On June 24th, 1976, Guian's work would make headlines around the world, and the in search of cameras would be there to record his remarkable discovery. 73 00:09:27,869 --> 00:09:39,870 In a quiet valley of the Rio Pampa Cona, northeast of Cusco, the stage is set for one of the great modern feats of exploration. 74 00:09:42,870 --> 00:09:47,870 It is 1976, and men have traveled to the moon in spaceships. 75 00:09:48,870 --> 00:09:53,870 But the travel here means saddle sores, blistered feet, and aching muscles. 76 00:09:54,870 --> 00:09:58,870 For at Mundo Guian, it is a small price to pay. 77 00:10:02,871 --> 00:10:07,871 Together with 10 colleagues from Peru and Poland, he is setting out on a great adventure. 78 00:10:17,871 --> 00:10:20,871 Guian's mission is of more than simple academic curiosity. 79 00:10:21,871 --> 00:10:31,872 He is out to recapture a place and a moment in history, and if he can, to set the record straight on the final chapter of the Inca Empire. 80 00:10:38,872 --> 00:10:46,872 The popular belief is that Pizarro's murder of the Inca king, Adujopa, brought the old empire instantly to its knees. 81 00:10:47,872 --> 00:10:51,872 Guian thinks that murder was just the beginning of the end for the Inca. 82 00:11:03,873 --> 00:11:08,873 Once over the first ridge from Pampa Cona, the trek begins in earnest. 83 00:11:16,873 --> 00:11:20,873 Hiram Bingham saw this country before at Mundo Guian was born. 84 00:11:20,873 --> 00:11:26,874 He gloried in its breathtaking beauty and struggled valiantly to unlock its mysteries. 85 00:11:27,874 --> 00:11:30,874 But Bingham did not have the blood of Incas in his veins. 86 00:11:30,874 --> 00:11:32,874 Guian does. 87 00:11:38,874 --> 00:11:43,874 It is the culmination of years of research and planning, and of some extraordinary luck. 88 00:11:44,874 --> 00:11:51,875 In the Spanish archives at Seville, Guian discovered letters written by soldiers of the king sent to battle the Inca. 89 00:11:51,875 --> 00:11:56,875 They described Vilcabamba in detail, including the neighboring geography. 90 00:11:57,875 --> 00:12:00,875 Guian knows that the secret is within his grasp. 91 00:12:01,875 --> 00:12:05,875 One Spanish soldier wrote, 92 00:12:05,875 --> 00:12:09,875 When I entered Vilcabamba, the city was desolate. 93 00:12:09,875 --> 00:12:12,875 The palace of the Inca burned. 94 00:12:12,875 --> 00:12:15,876 The food storages sacked. 95 00:12:15,876 --> 00:12:19,876 The letter was dated June 24th, 1572. 96 00:12:19,876 --> 00:12:25,876 Guian vows he will re-enter Vilcabamba on the same day of the same month. 97 00:12:31,876 --> 00:12:35,876 Each tree along the route could be a signpost. 98 00:12:35,876 --> 00:12:41,876 Each valley might be the one described in letters written by Spanish soldiers. 99 00:12:50,877 --> 00:12:54,877 The painstaking research is paying off for Guian and his band. 100 00:12:54,877 --> 00:12:59,877 There are minor discoveries to be made almost every day of the long trek. 101 00:13:00,877 --> 00:13:05,877 Tangillizing portents of what may lie beyond the next stream, over the next ridge. 102 00:13:09,878 --> 00:13:15,878 A longer river named on no map, Guian and his band are intrigued by what seems to be a cave entrance. 103 00:13:15,878 --> 00:13:20,878 A crypt is discovered. Its entrance long hidden by tons of debris. 104 00:13:23,878 --> 00:13:28,878 Guian believes it may be the grave of an important person, perhaps a member of Inca royalty. 105 00:13:31,878 --> 00:13:36,879 It is clear from the discovery of the crypt that the entrance is the entrance of the Inca. 106 00:13:36,879 --> 00:13:39,879 The entrance is the entrance of the Inca. 107 00:13:39,879 --> 00:13:44,879 It is clear from the discovery of the crypt that the end of Guian's quest cannot be far away. 108 00:13:47,879 --> 00:13:52,879 He will return another day to excavate the site. 109 00:14:02,880 --> 00:14:08,880 Great effort is still required if the last chapter to the Inca Empire is not to be written from the memoirs of the Inca Empire. 110 00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:14,880 Guian will be the first to leave the Inca Empire as a member of some long dead Spanish priest 111 00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:19,880 who may have been angered because proud savages worship the sun. 112 00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:25,880 There are only two days left if Guian is to make his rendezvous with history on schedule. 113 00:14:40,881 --> 00:14:45,881 It is here, just as Guian knew it would be. 114 00:14:47,881 --> 00:14:54,881 Vilcabamba at last. For everyone involved, it is the culmination of a great dream. 115 00:15:10,882 --> 00:15:21,882 It is 10 a.m. June 24th. Precisely 403 years have passed since soldiers of Spain sacked this city. 116 00:15:21,882 --> 00:15:26,883 Edmundo Guian has kept the promise he made to himself. 117 00:15:27,883 --> 00:15:31,883 Vilcabamba is retaken. 118 00:15:32,883 --> 00:15:43,883 It is all here, the superb Inca masonry combined with a light and airy style building open to the sky. 119 00:15:46,883 --> 00:15:56,884 It all started in the valley called Cusco. For a century, kings called Inca ruled from a city that was the marvel of pre-European civilization in the Americas. 120 00:15:57,884 --> 00:16:02,884 And there were the great fortresses like Saxa Woman. 121 00:16:05,884 --> 00:16:09,884 The long retreat of the Inca began with the coming of the Spaniards. 122 00:16:10,884 --> 00:16:16,885 But the glory was real. Even as they fought the Spaniards for control of their lush valleys, 123 00:16:16,885 --> 00:16:22,885 the Inca had time to build magnificent mountain retreats like Machu Picchu. 124 00:16:27,885 --> 00:16:35,885 Guian believes he has at last discovered the real thing, larger by far than Machu Picchu. 125 00:16:39,885 --> 00:16:44,886 From records left by two Spanish friars who visited Vilcabamba in 1570, 126 00:16:44,886 --> 00:16:48,886 Guian begins to reconstruct the city in his mind. 127 00:16:49,886 --> 00:16:55,886 The roofing tiles he finds are evidence that the city was built late in the Incan imperial era. 128 00:16:56,886 --> 00:17:03,886 The Incas traditionally covered their buildings with thatch. The Spanish introduced tile. 129 00:17:08,886 --> 00:17:13,887 There will be time for only a brief survey of his remarkable discovery. 130 00:17:13,887 --> 00:17:20,887 Later, others will come to assist with the detailed excavation necessary to piece together the last years of Inca greatness. 131 00:17:25,887 --> 00:17:31,887 The trained eye finds much evidence which helps date the construction of the long hidden city. 132 00:17:32,887 --> 00:17:37,888 Almost everything Guian finds seems to have been built about the same time. 133 00:17:37,888 --> 00:17:44,888 He feels this is a clear indication that Vilcabamba was hastily constructed as a refuge from encroaching Spanish soldiers. 134 00:17:47,888 --> 00:17:52,888 Yet the city's waterworks are as sophisticated as any in Cusco. 135 00:17:54,888 --> 00:17:58,888 After 400 years, they still work. 136 00:17:59,888 --> 00:18:04,889 The city was carefully planned and could have withstood a long siege by any army. 137 00:18:07,889 --> 00:18:12,889 There was the temple of the sun, perhaps as grand as any at Machu Picchu. 138 00:18:14,889 --> 00:18:18,889 Guian finds evidence that it was faced with solid gold. 139 00:18:20,889 --> 00:18:25,889 The city was carefully planned and could have withstood a long siege by any army. 140 00:18:26,889 --> 00:18:31,890 Sun temples were both centers of worship and astronomical observatories. 141 00:18:32,890 --> 00:18:37,890 The placement of stones aided the Inca in studying the movement of stars. 142 00:18:38,890 --> 00:18:41,890 Their knowledge of astronomy was remarkably advanced. 143 00:18:43,890 --> 00:18:48,890 The Inca were remarkable builders, yet they never standardized their tools or techniques. 144 00:18:49,890 --> 00:18:53,890 They were familiar with higher mathematics and never invented the wheel. 145 00:18:55,890 --> 00:18:58,891 Like everything else Guian has learned about the Inca, 146 00:18:59,891 --> 00:19:03,891 Vilcabamba will probably raise as many questions as it answers. 147 00:19:06,891 --> 00:19:11,891 The layout of the city seems to match the descriptions Guian uncovered in the Seville archives. 148 00:19:13,891 --> 00:19:17,891 The discovery clearly puts Inca history in a different light. 149 00:19:19,891 --> 00:19:23,892 The Inca did not give up their empire lightly, Guian believes. 150 00:19:23,892 --> 00:19:31,892 Time and their gods were against them, and they lost it all after a struggle Guian estimates lasted some 40 years. 151 00:19:32,892 --> 00:19:35,892 Still, it is good to be home. 152 00:19:54,893 --> 00:20:00,893 For the explorers, the occasion of Vilcabamba's discovery was both joyful and solemn. 153 00:20:05,893 --> 00:20:11,893 After more than 400 years, Guian is reclaiming Vilcabamba in the name of the Inca people. 154 00:20:13,893 --> 00:20:15,893 Viva Vilcabamba! Viva el Perú! 155 00:20:16,894 --> 00:20:18,894 Viva Vilcabamba! Viva Vilcabamba! 156 00:20:19,894 --> 00:20:21,894 Viva Vilcabamba! Viva Vilcabamba! 157 00:20:21,894 --> 00:20:23,894 Viva Vilcabamba! Viva el Perú! 158 00:20:28,894 --> 00:20:31,894 When at Mundo, Guian marched into Vilcabamba, the gold was gone. 159 00:20:32,894 --> 00:20:38,894 He believes the Inca may have dumped it into one of dozens of nearby lakes to prevent it from falling into Spanish hands. 160 00:20:39,894 --> 00:20:41,894 But Guian discovered a treasure, nevertheless. 161 00:20:42,894 --> 00:20:50,895 His was the treasure of satisfaction and achievement, the treasure of writing a new chapter to the history of a proud and brilliant people called Inca. 162 00:20:52,895 --> 00:20:59,895 Within weeks, Guian's discovery would make headlines throughout South America and the world. 163 00:21:02,895 --> 00:21:07,895 Ahead lay many months of hard work excavating the ruins of Vilcabamba, 164 00:21:08,895 --> 00:21:13,896 seeking clues to other unresolved mysteries about the Inca. 165 00:21:14,896 --> 00:21:21,896 For now, Guian could rest secure in the knowledge that he had made answers possible. 166 00:21:29,896 --> 00:21:35,896 Coming up next, an agent has no alibi when he's accused of murder on FDI, the Untold Stories. 167 00:21:35,896 --> 00:21:40,897 Then, history's crimes and trials chronicles the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge, 168 00:21:40,897 --> 00:21:43,897 the development of Pol Pot's Cambodian killing fields. 169 00:21:44,897 --> 00:21:51,897 And later tonight, fighter ace and Luftwaffe administrator Ernst Houttet heads for failure and disgrace as one of Hitler's generals. 170 00:21:51,897 --> 00:21:55,897 At nine, here on the History Channel, where the past comes alive.